Skaddenfreude: The $50K Club Welcomes Cravath, Swaine & Moore

Today brings more happy tidings for law clerks, emanating from The Death Star.
Check out the Cravath website (navigate through Career Information: Law Students, Life at Cravath, and Associate Life):

Incoming associates, in fall 2007, who have completed a U.S. Federal district court, Federal appellate court, or state highest court clerkship receive a bonus of $50,000 and credit for a one-year clerkship.

What about for two clerkships or two years of clerking? Or clerkships that don’t fit one of the foregoing categories?

Those associates who complete a clerkship of two years or two one-year clerkships will receive (in lieu of the $50,000 bonus described previously) a bonus of $70,000 and class credit for each year of a clerkship, up to two years. Credit and bonuses for a magistrate, a state lower court or a clerkship outside of the U.S. are reviewed on a case-by-case basis.

Good stuff. We commend Cravath for its transparency with respect to these matters. And we congratulate them on joining Weil Gotshal at the top of the bonus market for two clerkships: $70,000. (More on Weil in a later post.)
So now the $50K Club has five members (in order of their joining): Sullivan & Cromwell, Simpson Thacher, Paul Weiss, Weil Gotshal, and Cravath.
Correction: The paragraph below, which now appears in strikethrough text, was based on erroneous information. We were previously advised that Cravath paid different clerkship bonuses for district and circuit court clerkships. That was incorrect. The old Cravath clerkship bonus structure was $15K across the board, up to a maximum of $30K.
One other observation on the Cravath news. It removes the firm’s former two-tier system with respect to clerkship bonuses ($15K for district court clerkships, $35K for circuit court clerkships). This makes sense to us. While circuit court clerks may have, on the whole or as a general matter, more impressive credentials than district court clerks, a district court clerkship is usually a more educational experience (at least viewed from the perspective of a future litigator).

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